As Hollywood films keep invading Venice, Cannes and Toronto, spare a thought for the artier indies

The line-ups for the Venice and Toronto film festivals have been announced, and we’re seeing a lot of the same big names, on and behind the screen – big names from art cinema (say, Doubles Vies, by Olivier Assayas) and big names from mainstream cinema (A Star Is Born, directed by and starring Bradley Cooper, with Lady Gaga as his heroine). Two interesting questions pop up in this context. One, whether only the same big names keep making the films good enough to compete at film festivals. (There’s a running joke at Cannes that every time Naomi Kawase makes a movie, it’s automatically included in the line-up.) And two, whether something big and commercial like A Star Is Born – with a multi-million dollar marketing campaign that doesn’t really depend on visibility at a film festival – should be allowed to steal the limelight from more artsy, more indie fare.

Let us look at the second issue first. Film festivals – especially the ones later in the year – have now become launch pads for Oscar-hopeful movies. Gravity, Birdman, Spotlight, Hacksaw Ridge, Arrival, La La Land, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Shape Of Water were all premiered at Venice, and went on to win many Academy Awards between them. The festival director, Alberto Barbera, isn’t apologetic about this. In an interview to Variety, he said, “Venice has really proved that it has gone back to being an ideal platform to launch films internationally and for the start of the Oscar race. This year there were no movies [I wanted] that preferred another festival to Venice for launching their Oscar campaigns. It did not work that way in past years.” So it isn’t surprising that Bradley Cooper wants in, even though his film is playing out of competition. This is a symbiotic relationship. For a film festival, a huge Hollywood film raises its profile because the global media is more likely to cover A Star Is Born than Doubles Vies. And for the film, there’s the prestige of opening at the Toronto or Venice festivals, which are attended by many of the world’s most-read critics and opinion makers. (But what if the film isn’t received favourably, like Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows, which premiered at Cannes this year, and became the Iranian filmmaker’s most poorly reviewed film on Rotten Tomatoes? That’s the gamble, I guess.) Also, there is the “get” aspect. Festivals compete with each other to get the films of the most famous filmmakers (in the art-house realm, or mainstream), and the bigger the “get,” the more the coverage, the greater the bragging rights. After all, till Everybody Knows was seen and sighed over and dismissed, it was still the Penélope Cruz-Javier Bardem vehicle people couldn’t stop talking about.

But where does this leave the films and the filmmakers who aren’t yet household names? One could argue that someone like Assayas is never going to achieve mainstream popularity, and that’s true – but you wonder what it must be like to be the mouse amidst the Hollywood elephants. A film festival is the only place outside the art-house theatre that a filmmaker like Assayas is going to get his share of the spotlight – and now, even there, Hollywood has stepped in. Ask any newspaper or magazine editor in the world whether they want a story on Doubles Vies or A Star Is Born, and the answer will lean towards the latter. I’ve been there. Because now, in the brutal digital world, it’s all about clicks and eyeballs, and even if you are filing reports about the lower-profile films, it’s always a big name in the headline that makes the piece “move” online. But don’t weep for Assayas, yet – for this is where we get back to the first question. Right from his early films (Cold Water, Irma Vep), he’s been a fixture at Cannes. Sentimental Destinies, Demonlover, Clean, Paris, je t’aime (an anthology film in which Assayas directed an episode), Boarding Gate, Carlos, Personal Shopper and Clouds of Sils Maria have all premiered at (and most of them have competed for awards at) Cannes. (See the red carpet hoo-hah for Clouds of Sils Maria in the clip below.) Something in the Air (2012), in between, was premiered at Venice. This is not to knock Assayas, who is a great filmmaker, but is every film of his so great that a festival premiere is a given? Are there no other filmmakers who made – in any given year that Assayas made a film – better films, which deserved to be at these festivals?

The answers hinge on a peculiar irony. If A Star is Born is the elephant compared to Assayas, then, in the art-house scheme of things, Assayas is the elephant when compared to a lesser-known filmmaker. Again, it’s the same problem. Even when you take the media that covers art-house cinema, a “known name,” an art-house celebrity (like Assayas) in the headline will make your piece “move” better online than someone who’s made a great film but isn’t that famous yet. There certainly are a few publications (especially non-English) that doggedly speak to the art-house cinephile, but I am talking about the majority of the media. And that’s why we see the same big names in the festival line-ups, year after year, even when the films are declared duds. An Assayas film, even a lesser one, is still a big “get” for a festival. If the film ends up being great, that’s even better. Baradwaj Rangan is editor, Film Companion (south).